Sunday, October 19, 2008

Movie Censorship Note: House of a Thousand Corpses

A Rob Zombie movie, not what I expected, really, this is a fairly sincere effort at a commercial horror movie, fairly conventional, actors that I actually recognized, derivative horror imagery, from existing films and terrible people history. These movies are essentially silly: those “monsters” are just as human as you, so just kill them you dumb shit. Pull their fucking eyes out, see how they like being chased around in the dark, burn their playhouse down. Just tell the cops you don’t remember anything. Actually, don’t say a single word. The trial will go your way, if they have the nerve to try you.

Censorship in Thailand is strict. They blur out any guns to the head, extended middle fingers, female breasts, even smoking tobacco products. There’s lots of stuff to blur-out in this movie. And evidently, the entire ending is so toxic that it had to be eliminated all together.

Arriving at the climax of the lame horror action, the movie simply stopped. A pleasantly colored, calligraphic text screen was put up explaining in Thai that the rest was just way out of bounds for the delicate people of Thailand. So we missed whatever sorry excuse for resolution Mr. Zombie had in mind. No end credits, no nothing, the time to the next movie was filed with some lame music videos.

Form again triumphs over function, the Thai ideal. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (violence in Thailand). Keep your eye on the golden illusion.

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